


Home From India

by obsolete_theory (ersatzbeta)



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Alternate Reality, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2014-05-23
Packaged: 2018-01-26 07:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1679075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ersatzbeta/pseuds/obsolete_theory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gojyo walked all the way home from India.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home From India

**Author's Note:**

> I'm calling this alternate reality simply because it is post-canon, and the canon hasn't actually come to a conclusion.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
>  
> 
> .

Gojyo walked all the way home from India.

What else was he supposed to do when the dust settled from their big showdown with Gyumaoh?

Sanzo, of course, had grabbed the sutras, all of them, and an expression close to happy had crossed his face.

And then he fucked off to gods-knew-where, and Goku followed him, because that's what Goku did. He stayed with Sanzo.

And Hakkai, that bastard,  _stayed in India_.

Gojyo understood why Hakkai had done it. Really, he did. Ground zero was more like Shangri-La than home ever had been, with Kougaiji running things now that his dear old dad was nothing but dust and ashes. 

Hakkai could be himself in India. No limiters. Nobody after his blood. No responsibilities except the ones he took on himself.

Gojyo didn't argue; he saw how good India was for Hakkai.

It just sucked, that was all. No Sanzo, no Goku, no Hakkai.

No car, either.

Even though Gojyo made way fucking better time than the four of them had, it still took him a year to get back home. 

He walked under the burning sun so long that his skin went beyond tan into brown. His hair brightened up, from dark red to a screaming candy apple, which he hated. (He tried to cut it with his pocket knife, but that didn't turn out so hot.)

He walked until his boots fell apart.

He walked until the soles of his feet were tougher than leather.

He walked and walked and walked and watched the countryside around him change.

Gojyo didn't take a map with him, but he didn't need one. He knew, more or less, how to get home: just walk east.

He walked between mountains. He walked the wavering edges of deserts. He forded rivers and lakes and streams. He made his painful way up the walls of canyons and ravines, when there weren't any bridges.

 

Mostly Gojyo avoided the towns. 

Even though the Minus Wave had ended, the people he encountered were still scared, and he wasn't one of them. Sometimes he'd stop for a day and cut firewood or clear some land or help move the rubble from destroyed houses in exchange for a little something to eat that wasn't completely raw, something that he didn't have to scavenge for himself in the wilderness.

He moved pieces of a hundred houses that way. Maybe more. It was hard to tell, sometimes, how many houses were in a pile of stones and mortar and scorched wood.

Gojyo buried the dead.

Sometimes, someone would say something about how much he looked like a corpse, himself, and maybe they ought to dig a hole for him too. It was a shitty joke. He heard it a lot, more and more as he got closer to the goal.

Home.

 

 

By the time he got to the valley at the farthest outskirts of Chang-An, the place where maybe, just maybe, his shitty little house still was, he  _felt_  like a corpse. 

Gojyo made it to the bar and, with the last yuan in his pocket he ordered a beer.

None of the regulars were around. Even the barkeep was someone new. Gojyo wasn't sure whether or not he was relieved that no one was there to recognize him. He barely recognized himself these days, and being here, in this bar, in this seat, in this village…sometimes he thought he'd fallen asleep somewhere and was going to wake up, rattling along in the jeep towards India.

Maybe he was dead and this was the only afterlife he was going to get.

Gojyo drank alone and tried to feel alive.

 

 

His house was gone.

The trees had grown up around it. The weeds had grown through it. All he could find was some termite-eaten wood and a hulk of rusted iron from the roof.

Gojyo wanted to lay down and sleep for a million years. He didn't want to clean up where the yard used to be, didn't want to rebuild. He didn't know how to start because the whole idea just…overwhelmed him. It was too much. 

He slept that first night at the foot of the road god's shrine, half a mile from where his house was. It was dry under the roof of the shrine, which was nice, and the floor was covered with grass mats, so he didn't sleep directly on the dirt. Also nice.

Gojyo woke in the morning and patted the god's toes as thanks. He figured if anyone owed him a night's sleep, it was this guy, who supposedly watched over travelers and the roads they went.

 

He started by cutting down the little trees.  Gojyo didn't have an axe, but his shakujou's blades were as sharp as when they first came to be. He cut through trees and brush, and when the chain got tangled he laid the shakujou down and hauled away all the debris into a pile at the far end of the yard. Then he cut more trees.

He unearthed the bits of his old house. There was more of it left than he'd thought. Gojyo found pieces of other people's lives: bottles and dishes and a washed out rag doll. Whoever those people were, they hadn't stayed long. He wondered if they'd been eaten by youkai, all alone in the woods, when things were bad and no one was safe, no matter where they were. Stranger things had happened.

Anything that wouldn't burn, he put in a second pile. It was much smaller.

 

At the end of the day, Gojyo took a bath in a nearby stream, and he waited on top of a big rock until he was mostly dry before he put his clothes back on. Then, he went to the bar.

 

Gojyo won enough playing cards that he could buy a few things: a shovel, a real axe, some food that he didn't have to cook himself.

He worked to clear the land while the sun beat down on him. He dug a foundation, day by day.

He played poker at the bar at night. Sometimes he won and sometimes he lost. When Gojyo lost, he'd spend a day or a week working someone's farm, or digging ditches, or re-roofing someone else's house. When he won, he stockpiled things he'd need for the house: corrugated iron and nails, tools, the promise of help with the plumbing or electric work--things he could do himself but would probably screw up and he'd end up with nothing but ice water or he'd electrocute himself the first time he switched on a light. 

Gojyo didn't want a big house. The size of the last one suited him just fine. He wanted three rooms and a bath. He wanted the roof to not leak and the stairs to the front door not be rotted through. And he'd like it all to be done before winter came and the ground froze solid.

 

By October, the frame was up and the roof was on and he had three out of four outside walls done.

When things got cold in November, the outside of his house was done. So he moved in and started work on the inside.

In December, Gojyo discovered why it was a terrible idea to build with green wood. 

 

His house was fucking  _cold_.

Every time it snowed, he spent a good hour in the morning going around and sweeping out the snow that had come in through the cracks, and then he'd build up the fire as much as he could. He'd sweep out again before he banked the fire and went to bed.

Gojyo lived with the cold. He also lived with mice. He hated how they ran around chewing on things, eating his rice and his blankets, and how they'd crawl on him in the night. But he couldn't keep them out, not with the walls full of cracks, and if he killed one, two more came to take its place.

 

One morning, Gojyo woke up with warm feet for the first time in weeks. He looked to see if maybe he'd finally gotten frostbite permanently and was going to have to cut off some part of himself.

There was a cat on his bed, stretched across his feet. A skinny brown cat with one and a half ears. He jiggled a foot and the cat opened one eye and trained it on him.

"What do you think you're doing?" said Gojyo.

And then he had a moment where he thought he'd finally gone nuts, because he was talking to a cat.

The cat glared at him as if it could see his thoughts and disapproved of them all. The way the cat looked at him reminded him of Sanzo. 

Once Gojyo stopped hurting from thinking about the people who weren't around anymore, he laughed. The noise startled the cat, and the cat leapt off the bed and trotted away, its ears back and its tail low to the ground.

 

Sanzo was an excellent housemate. She--Gojyo had lifted the cat's tail and taken a swipe of claws for the privilege--hunted and ate the mice, and she didn't shit indoors.

Of course, Sanzo also sharpened her claws on all the walls and on Gojyo's legs, too, if she could catch him standing still. Once in a while, when they were both laying in the bed, she might let Gojyo stroke her back a few times before she bit him.

Sanzo stayed skinny as a rail, no matter how many mice she ate. Gojyo wasn't very hungry, and he stayed skinny too. His tan faded and his hair darkened and grew long again.

He and Sanzo limped through the winter.

 

In the spring, Sanzo disappeared after three straight days of tomcats yowling in the yard. Gojyo tried (and failed) to not be disappointed. She was only a cat, after all. Not like she was someone important, or even that she was his friend. 

"Ungrateful," said Gojyo. "I hope you get knocked up!"

He spent the rest of the week cleaning up every cat hair he could find. There was no way he could make the claw marks disappear. She'd scarred his house and she'd scarred him too.

 

 

After that, time blurred together for Gojyo. He fixed holes in his walls so the mice wouldn't keep coming and going, and the mice found new holes. He put up walls indoors. His house felt strange with everything boxed off, like it was someone else's and he was just squatting, waiting for the real owners to come and fill it with noise and things and other signs of life. 

He tore the new walls down. Gojyo hung a canvas in front of the toilet and the shower in the corner and the spigot and drain that were supposed to be a bathroom sink, someday, and called it quits. His house was as done as it was going to be, and if anyone visited and didn't like it, they didn't have to come again.

Gojyo did not think about what Hakkai would say. Hakkai wasn't there.

 

 

Early in June, Sanzo came back, very obviously full of kittens.

"Toldja," said Gojyo.

She swiped at his ankle, and he blew his cigarette smoke at her.

A few days later, she gave birth on his pillow. The kittens were stillborn, and Gojyo buried them out back. Sanzo sat herself on top of the freshly turned dirt and she stayed there all night. Gojyo didn't try to coax her back inside. He kind of thought he knew how she felt.

 

 

Gojyo hired out for most of the summer and into the fall--odd jobs and field work, mostly. Whatever needed an extra set of hands and could pay him in food or money or in trade. Even here, so close to his home, there was clean up from the bad days to be done. So he did that too.

There was poker when he wasn't working, but there was less of it than before he'd gone west. The new people in town had wised up pretty fast, so he saved card games for special occasions.

Gojyo's life fell into the same sort of routines it had when he had lived alone the first time. Drinking, women, poker. The only novelty--actual paying work--wore off really, really fast. 

One of the great tragedies, Gojyo thought, was how his liver had gone soft when he wasn't looking. He got drunk fast now, too fast to really enjoy it. His hangovers were abysmal and lingered long into the days.

 

Winter, spring, summer, fall. 

Sanzo came and went, clawing his ankles and his furniture, disappearing with tomcats and reappearing when she was hungry.

Jobs came and went, but Gojyo had enough to stay fed and clothed. He had everything he needed.

Time came and went, and Gojyo was still alone. A little older, and a lot alone. He had everything he needed. He didn't have a clue how to get what he wanted (a cranky priest and his pet monkey and a best friend and his pet dragon, and just…for everyone to come  _back_.) 

Gojyo didn't make friends. None of the guys at the bar really knew him. If they did, they'd run for the hills while they had the chance.

Every time there was a woman--there were several but they were all exactly the same--she left in the early days, and every time it felt like nothing had happened at all. Which, probably, was why they left him, one after the other. Splitting up didn't hurt like it should, but Gojyo didn't mind.

Spring, summer, fall, winter; over and over like nothing had ever changed.

 

 

The year Gojyo turned thirty, he started hoping for a miracle. He knew the gods were real and that you didn't want their attention, but he wanted something  _good_  to happen, instead of gray days and boredom and…(waiting, always waiting.)

 

Sanzo died a few weeks into spring. 

Gojyo found her at the side of the road, like some other bastard he knew-- minus her insides--only she wasn't ever going to get up again. It looked like a dog or something had been chewing on her. He gave her ear a pet, but she was cold and dead and it wasn't the same at all. 

He buried her next to her kittens from that first year, and put a big slab of rock on top of the whole thing so nothing would dig her up.

"Stupid," said Gojyo. "She was only a cat."

He sat on the rock and smoked a cigarette and told himself it was the smoke and the sunlight and the sweat from the effort of moving the rock that was stinging his eyes.

He bought mouse traps in town the next time he went. It wasn't like another cat was going to just show up now that Sanzo was gone. He was going to have to take care of the mice by himself.

 

 

There was a woman.

They met at the bar and slept together at her house, did dinner and walks around town together. Couple stuff. Romantic, even. She didn't mind his one-room house. And she was very good about the mice and the drafts that kept blowing through no matter how he sealed them.

There was a woman and then, one day, there wasn't. Gojyo didn't blame her for leaving. His heart wasn't in it, and he knew that she knew it too. She wanted more than he could give. Their relationship was the best he'd done in years, but it just wasn't enough.

When she left him, it didn't hurt at all.

 

 

What hurt Gojyo was this:

One crisp, cool October evening, someone knocked on his door. Gojyo opened it and thought he would die right then and there.

Hakkai had come back.

"I wasn't sure I was coming," said Hakkai. "Otherwise I would have written. May I come in?"

Hakkai looked different. He looked good. He wore a single limiter on one gently pointed ear; his voice was sibilant at the edges, and Gojyo could see the vines moving under his skin. He looked well, and his smile was as real as Gojyo had ever seen.

Gojyo's heart raced and he felt like puking. He felt himself staring at Hakkai and he couldn't stop.

He slammed the door in Hakkai's face.

Even through the door, he could hear Hakkai's footsteps, painfully familiar and just out of reach.

Gojyo slid to the floor. The back of his head thumped against the door on the way down.

He heard Hakkai sigh.

"I know an apology isn't enough and doesn't have much meaning," said Hakkai. "But I am sorry. Truly."

Gojyo heard a noise he'd heard on hundreds of nights on the journey West: the scrape and shuffle of dirt as Hakkai sat down. It made his chest squeeze to hear it again. Gojyo knew without seeing that Hakkai was sitting back to back with him now, and he could almost feel the warmth of Hakkai through the door.

"Why'd you come back?" said Gojyo.

He didn't recognize his own voice. There was something pathetic in the tone, something raw and scraping. It hurt his throat to speak even this whisper. He knew Hakkai could hear him; for the first time in years, Hakkai could hear him, and that hurt so much more than actually talking did.

"It's been six years," said Hakkai. "I missed you."

Six years? It hadn't felt like six years to Gojyo. 

Walking home had felt like forever, and everything after that had passed by so quickly and, simultaneously, so slowly that even the change of the seasons hadn't really registered with Gojyo.

"I don't have an explanation for staying away," said Hakkai. "I…suppose I was lost, in a sense, upon the completion of our journey."

Weren't they fucking all.

Hakkai laughed a polite, fake laugh, and Gojyo wasn't sure if that was just Hakkai or if he'd said something aloud that Hakkai found funny.

"Remember Chin Yisou?" said Hakkai. "I'd told him my heart was too small, too selfish, to hold anything for anyone but myself."

Gojyo's chest burned with the memory of the plant choking him from the inside out, and he struggled to breathe because he could also feel where Sanzo had shot him like it was open and bleeding again, torn apart by the sound of Hakkai's voice.

"I'd been truthful then," said Hakkai. "Only I didn't--"

Hakkai paused again and Gojyo listened to him breathing for a few still seconds. Gojyo had forgotten the sound of Hakkai when he breathed. How could he forget something so basic?

Hakkai cleared his throat and started again, softly.

"I hadn't realized the extent of that truth," said Hakkai. "Of my selfishness. Not until I chose to stay. I knew it would hurt you. I knew my choice would hurt you, but I did it regardless, and I felt no guilt about it. It was novel, in a way. Freeing."

Gojyo wanted to laugh, but everything in him hurt too much. The first time he saw Hakkai in years, and this was how he started a conversation? What the hell was Hakkai thinking?

Gojyo wanted Hakkai to leave.  

He also wanted Hakkai to come inside the house and never leave again.

For a stomach-churning minute, Gojyo thought about killing Hakkai to keep him safe, wanted to bury him where no one and nothing could ever touch him.

Gojyo wanted everything to be like it was before Gonou had died and been reborn as Hakkai--the two of them playing cards and playing house, living on the fringes and not giving a shit about the rest of the world.

Before Sanzo, before the Minus Wave, before India.

Gojyo's eyes burned, and he scrubbed at them with his fists. His whole mouth hurt from clenching his jaws shut so he wouldn't actually speak to Hakkai, and he'd bitten his tongue or the inside of his cheek somewhere along the way. He tasted the blood in his mouth.

"Gojyo," said Hakkai. "I'm…"

Hakkai sighed.

"I should go," he said. "It was entirely selfish--entirely unrealistic--of me to show up and expect to be friends again."

A scraping noise and then muffled clapping; Gojyo knew Hakkai was standing again and had brushed the dust off his clothing and hands.

"If you would like to see me, if you change your mind about me, write to the temple in Chang-An," said Hakkai. "I'm staying with the monks for the time being."

The noises Hakkai made got faint, then disappeared. Gojyo held his breath.

When Gojyo couldn't hear anything but ringing in his ears, he exhaled. He got up off the floor. He stood and looked at the door, his hand on the knob but not turning it, not yet. He waited until his breath evened out and his fingers stopped feeling cold before he let himself move to open it.

 

At the far end of the yard, lit by the rising moon and the outer edge of the single outside light Gojyo had, Hakkai climbed up the shoulder of an enormous white dragon.

"Hakuryuu?" said Gojyo.

The dragon's head swung towards him despite the distance.

It let out a whistle, ear-piercing and deafening. And, even though he hadn't heard that noise in years, and even though it was much louder and deep enough that it made the ground buzz under Gojyo's feet, he knew it was Hakuryuu and that Hakuryuu knew who he was.

"Well shit," said Gojyo.

Hakuryuu was huge now, bigger than the riding dragons they'd seen in Kougaiji's palace. Gojyo wondered, distracted, if this meant that Hakuryuu turned into a tank or something now, instead of a jeep. A sailing ship maybe? He hoped Hakuryuu had enough room to get into the air, though Gojyo supposed he'd landed all right.

The dragon winked one enormous eye at him, slow and lazy.

"What?" said Gojyo. 

It was like he'd fallen asleep and entered some strange new world, except dreams always made sense no matter how crazy they were, and this…didn't.

Then, he realized that Hakkai had dismounted and was running, blocking Gojyo's line of sight. Hakuryuu wasn't really winking. Gojyo just stood there, not believing what he saw, watching, not really understanding.

A single silver earring flashed, pinged to the ground, bounced twice, and rolled to a stop.

Vines exploded from Hakkai, shooting out so hard and fast they cracked like gunfire. Gojyo instinctively dove for the ground. Vines whipped over his head. They missed but were close enough that Gojyo felt the wind they made as they surged forward before they caught up with him and coiled tight.

Leaves scratched at him, and the vines curled until he almost couldn't breathe. He tried moving, just a little, but he didn't have any play and couldn't even raise his head, let alone sit up. The vines all smelled like Hakkai, and Gojyo was stuck wanting to not breathe at all and wanting to suck in all the air he could, so that maybe this time when Hakkai left, the scent of him would never fade.

It was the best and the worst he'd felt since India.

The vines contracted around him, and Gojyo found himself being drawn up to face Hakkai. Gojyo didn't want to look, saw only the flash of green eyes and brown hair. He squeezed his eyes shut.

A claw--had to be a claw because the vines weren't that hard and sharp--scraped along his cheek, and he felt a slow ooze of blood start.

"Gojyo," said Hakkai. "Please, open your eyes."

If Gojyo could have, he would have shook his head.

"I'm sorry," said Hakkai. "I just…I wanted to see you."

A leaf tickled Gojyo's right eyelid, and the finest tendril of vine crawled along behind the leaf, weaving itself into his eyelashes. It felt like a tongue, licking him, and it made him shiver.

The vine poked, then, and Gojyo couldn't help opening his eye. As soon as he did, the vine shot across his eyelids, top and bottom, and squeezed hard. He couldn't close his eye again, no matter how he tried. He felt his eye start to dry out.

"Hakkai," said Gojyo.

Gojyo felt himself begin to be very, very angry.

"I wanted you to see me," said Hakkai.

So Gojyo looked, let his anger stab at Hakkai through the eye he couldn't close.

"Yes," said Hakkai. "I know."

The corners of Hakkai's mouth turned down, like he was sad. The tips of his fangs gleamed, dots of perfect white. The sight only made Gojyo angrier, angry enough to yell.

"The fuck do you know?" said Gojyo. "You weren't even here!"

Leaves rustled as the vines brought him even closer to Hakkai. Gojyo stared into his eyes, striated and green. The slitted pupils contracted, then expanded.

"You are my only friend," said Hakkai. "If I pulled the eyes from my head, would you understand then, that the choice I made was a difficult one?"

He aimed one clawed finger at his left eye and sank the tip of his claw into the skin just underneath the eye. Blood welled up, dark red.

"I didn't do well on my own, despite Kougaiji's well-meant interventions," said Hakkai. "I didn't start a new life."

Gojyo wanted Hakkai to take the claw away from his eye. Hakkai needed that eye. Even though he was angry, Gojyo didn't want Hakkai to hurt himself just to show how serious he was. 

He already knew how serious a man Hakkai was.

"Sanzo died," said Gojyo.

Hakkai blinked. A drop of blood smeared on his lashes.

"Not Sanzo-Sanzo," said Gojyo. "There was this stray cat, skinny and mean."

Hakkai's mouth softened. The claw pulled free, and Gojyo saw through the hole in the skin there, watched as the meat underneath got washed with blood.

"I'm sorry," said Hakkai.

He really did sound sorry this time.

"Yeah well," said Gojyo. "She was only a cat."

"Hmm," said Hakkai.

And even though it had been a long time, Gojyo knew that that sound meant that Hakkai didn't agree with him.

It would almost be easy to pick right up where they left off.

"Your brother is well," said Hakkai. "He sends his greetings."

Gojyo's open eye watered, and the closed one welled in sympathy. 

"I'm definitely not crying," said Gojyo. "I can't blink right now."

"Of course you aren't," said Hakkai.

The vine withdrew, slithering back across his face, through the not-tears. Gojyo closed his eye and sighed with relief.

"Thanks," said Gojyo.

He wasn't so angry any more. Being mad at Hakkai was like being mad at a storm because it rained a lot and washed out the road. You could be mad all you wanted, but it wasn't going to change the storm or the rain or the road. He opened his eyes again and looked at Hakkai.

"You deserve to be angry with me," said Hakkai.

"Yeah," said Gojyo. "Believe me, I'm pissed."

He pushed against the vines that held him, pushed toward Hakkai. The vines loosened. Gojyo struggled forward and wrapped his arms around Hakkai, tight. He felt Hakkai's ribs squeak under his arms.

Hakkai hugged him back, and a hundred vines twined around the both of them.

"You could have written," said Gojyo. "Shit, you could have--"

He breathed deep. He still didn't understand where his voice was coming from, what part of him sounded that desperate and sad and rough, like ten miles of bad road.

"You could have come home with me in the first place," Gojyo said. "We could have come home together, just like the old days."

"I could have, yes," said Hakkai.

His breath washed over the back of Gojyo's neck. Again, the gentle disagreement voice.

"I could have," Hakkai said. "But these are the new days, aren't they?"

"Fuck the new days," said Gojyo. "I liked the old ones just fine."

Hakkai was quiet for a minute. Gojyo wondered if Hakkai was thinking about the years on the road, too.

"I slept with Kougaiji," said Hakkai.

Gojyo's head whirled at the change in subject.

"Uh, is that supposed to matter to me?" said Gojyo.

"Kougaiji was one of the reasons I stayed," said Hakkai. "At least I can explain that part of it, even if the rest can't be so easily articulated."

Gojyo shook his head.

"I don't care," said Gojyo. "It isn't like we--you know?"

His face burned, and he was sure Hakkai could feel it. Weren't they supposed to be friends? Not that Gojyo hadn't thought about something more once in a while, but if it was supposed to happen, it would have already. Wouldn't it?

"I didn't base my stay in India solely on sex," said Hakkai. "Nor did I choose to return because of it--neither the lack of something from him nor the promise of more with you had anything to do with it."

If this hadn't been the first time Gojyo'd touched Hakkai in six years, he would have let go then. They'd never talked about it, and Gojyo didn't exactly want to start now. 

Gojyo didn't tell Hakkai about the woman. 

Instead, he studied Hakkai's face, mapping the changes there, marking the things that were still the same.

"I simply didn't belong there," said Hakkai. "I had hoped that there might be a place for me here."

Gojyo let go. The vines withdrew, and he watched them slowly retreat into Hakkai's skin.

"There wasn't even a place for me," said Gojyo. "The house was gone."

He gestured vaguely towards the house, as if that would show Hakkai what it was like to come back to overgrown trees and pieces of other peoples' lives instead of the house and the life they'd shared.

"But you built again," said Hakkai.

"Yeah," said Gojyo. 

Gojyo didn't tell Hakkai that he'd been waiting the whole time, had stayed in the same place so that if Hakkai ever came back, he could find him.

Somehow Hakkai seemed to know it anyway.

"You're a better friend than I deserve," said Hakkai. "I've been a terrible friend in return."

The ground shuddered under their feet.

"What the--" said Gojyo.

"Hakuryuu!" said Hakkai. "Enough!"

The dragon had taken a few careful steps towards the two of them and, at Hakkai's reprimand, he let out a rumble and gave the both of them a mournful look.

"He's impatient for dinner," said Hakkai. "Apparently the food at the monastery is agreeable to him."

The white bulk of the dragon was like a mountain in the middle of the yard. Gojyo could have kissed the dragon for being such a perfectly safe thing to talk about.

"He must eat like a motherfucker," said Gojyo. "Do they bring it to him in wheelbarrows or what?"

"Very nearly," said Hakkai. "But he is a strong flier. It made the trip from India considerably less difficult."

Gojyo thought about his long walk.

"I'm sorry," said Hakkai. "I didn't mean--"

"Shut up Hakkai," said Gojyo. "The walk home wasn't the hard part."

He looked at Hakkai again and wondered what it had been like to fly.

"Ah," said Hakkai. "Can I--"

Hakkai stopped, one hand stretched toward Gojyo. Gojyo wished Hakkai would make up his mind about what he wanted to do. (Gojyo wished he could do the same thing.)

"I hope I might see you again," said Hakkai. "If you want to see me, that is."

Gojyo walked over to Hakkai's limiter. It shone like a star on the ground. He picked it up, brushed a few crumbs of dirt off it, and brought it back to Hakkai.

"Yeah," he said. "I'd like that. Just--"

Gojyo felt suddenly tired, like he'd like to collapse because his legs just couldn't hold him up. He locked his knees.

"Just tell me if you decide to leave again," said Gojyo. "You're the only friend I've got too, you know?"

Hakkai grabbed him and crushed him close, nearly pulling Gojyo off his feet. His claws dug into Gojyo's back, and Gojyo could feel Hakkai's chest expanding and shrinking with every breath.

"Of course I will," Hakkai said. "Of course I will."

They stood together and breathed the cold night air. Gojyo slid the limiter onto Hakkai's ear. The claws shrank, and Hakkai's eyes became less intense, more manageable for Gojyo to look at. 

Gojyo wanted to congratulate himself for not flinching when Hakkai's lips brushed against his cheek, where he had scratched before. Hakkai came away with dried blood flaked on his mouth.

"I'll see you soon," said Hakkai. "I promise."

Gojyo nodded.

Hakkai got on Hakuryuu. With a gust of wind from Hakuryuu's wings that sent Gojyo's hair stinging into his eyes, the dragon lifted off, taking Hakkai into the air above the house.

For a long time afterward, Gojyo stared into the sky, watching for the shadow of wings against the moon. He kept his eyes open, not daring to blink, not wanting to stop watching. It could have been a dream, a fabulous, happy-sad dream, but he felt the scab on his cheek and looked at the blurry prints Hakuryuu had left behind, and Gojyo knew, somewhere deep inside his chest and a little south of his heart, that it was real. 

 

 

"Hakkai's home," said Gojyo, trying out the words.

It sounded so strange to say it out loud. Time would wear down the shock. Just a little more time and his brain would know the truth of it too.

Gojyo's eyes hurt, his head hurt, his chest felt like it would explode, and his nose and mouth were raw. His arms ached and his legs still wobbled when he tried a half step towards the house. Gojyo concentrated on breathing, on holding himself together. He pretended that Hakkai's vines were still around him, supporting him and keeping him up. He could almost hear the crackle of the leaves rubbing against each other.

Hakkai had come back. Everything would be fine now, because Hakkai had come back. Things would be better now. Gojyo wouldn't be so alone.

The vines had been so warm on his skin.

 

It was pure, ecstatic release when Gojyo finally started to cry.


End file.
